Milling Around

I have started thinking about outdoor sports and looked up baseball in Morgan Mill in Gene Williams’ book.

He states, “Baseball games provided most small communities their only form of entertainment for many years. In a conversation with Bruce Larner years ago, he recalled watching the older boys play baseball at Morgan Mill around 1900-1910. He especially seemed to enjoy telling about how fast Lowrey Williams (1884-1974) could run. Bruce said that Lowrey, a younger brother of Tom Williams (1877-1963), would nearly always outrun a ball thrown to first base by either the third baseman or the shortstop. In the early 1920’s Morgan Mill had a baseball team that played games during the summer with teams from surrounding communities. The baseball field was located on the school grounds through the 1930s.

Morgan Mill did not have a baseball team during World War II, but after the war several communities began to organize a team and play games on a home to home basis. Most of the teams were made up of World War II veterans, men who played ball before the war.

Albert (Muddy) Yancy and Wayne Larner organized a baseball team at Morgan Mull in 1946. The players were given wool uniforms supplied by business people at Stephenville. A few balls and a few bats were paid for by taking up collections at the games. The baseball field was located on the John Mefford farm, about one-half mile north of Morgan Mill and on Hwy 281. Towns in the league were MM, Gordon, Tin Top, Santo, Lipan, Brock, and Bluff Dale.

In 1948, the baseball field was relocated to the Joe Myers pasture, about two miles north of MM on Hwy 281. This field was one of the better fields around, having a level outfield and a smooth infield. There was a backstop made of chicken wire. Most of the games were played on Sunday afternoon and large crowds of people attended the games. Gene Williams’ mother Ursie, kept a score book of the games and she recorded playing fifteen games in 1949, winning eleven of them. The summer of 1950 was the last year Morgan Mill fielded a baseball team. Roscoe Davis was a member of that team, playing outfield.

The March 2008 student of the month was Payton Kimple, first grader in MM. The United Co-op gave the Morgan Mill School a grant for $5,000 to help purchase the big, big fan in the school gym. Heather Bostock, a sophomore at Stephenville High School, was selected to Sports Ambassador to Holland to represent the U.S. in a bowling competition. Those were the days, 10 years ago.

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